Our dressers and wardrobes have been sold. But those are 4 pieces of furniture that will not be replaced, because we built an open wardrobe in the bedroom.
One thing I loved, loved, loved about the open storage in the kitchen is how much easier it is to keep everything neat and orderly.
I know, it’s weird. It’s not like opening a cabinet door is that much work. I don’t understand how or why it’s so much easier…it just is.
An issue we struggled with in keeping the bedroom tidy is piling things on any available surface (dresser tops, nightstands, etc). When there is no surface available, we won’t have the option to be lazy, so we should suck it up and put stuff away, where it belongs. Hopefully.
While our closet is mostly finished, it still needs some adjustments, and there is still a lot of work to do in the room, so updates will continue. But we’ve been using it for a couple weeks now, and we love it so far. It almost feels like getting dressed in a boutique. And our bedroom feels so much bigger without all that furniture. Here’s what it looked like before, one more time:
Update: There are a couple things I still hear regularly from visitors about our closet. One is “It CAN’T be neat or even clean.” After living with this for over 2 years, we can say emphatically that that’s just not true. It was actually far LESS dusty, and EASIER to keep neat, and we can’t wait to re-create it in our new house.
The other question is much more positive: what materials did we use for the shelves? The shelves are made from stair treads from the home improvement store. They are thicker, deeper, and sturdier than buying wall shelves, and the edges are rounded, which looks nice. The brackets were from Anthropologie, but there are some pretty ones linked to from Amazon below. On the undersides of the shelves, we fastened wall rails from IKEA to hang the clothes from. We hung the brackets either in studs or used wall anchors, of course, because clothes are heavy.
Here are links to similar products (though treads are MUCH cheaper at the DIY store):
(Affiliate links above)
View all posts in this series:
- DIY paper light for under $15
- Loft progress!
- Ugly old sideboard to TV stand
- My New Wagon
- Our DIY pantry (from the only closet in the house)
- Sweet old bar cart, refinished
- yes, one more bar cart
- Future girly office and my first real mood board
- Craft room. Progress?
- DIY chalkboard tray
- Feminine office inspiration (yay, it’s finally Friday!)
- Front porch hopes
- DIY Rug from a drop cloth
- A bowl of mint-dipped cuteness
- Updated front porch rug and a spray painted pillow
- The (pretty much) finished front porch
- All new blue and gray (and still some pink) feminine office mood board
- The ceiling is blue
- Jewelry box turned into craft supply storage
- Painting a room that’s full of stuff
- Finished painting!
- Choosing the perfect sofa bed for such a small space
- Napkin holder organizers
- Updated eagle clock
- How to make a $2 wood grain binder
- Will the office work ever end?
- How to make your own matchstick blind valances
- DIY glitter thumbtacks
- Customized floating shelves for the office (Hacked Lacks!)
- What to do when you don’t have enough room for end tables
- Powder room plans
- The girly office/guest room is done! (for now)
- Decanter as bedside water pitcher
- The living room is finally presentable
- A fun change in plans
- Easy and cheap DIY fridge coaster
- Refinished thrift store lamps
- A mood board for the whole house
- Projects Happening
- The living room is lit!
- DIY birdcage chandelier
- Altering curtain panels: how to hide the tab tops
- Painted windows
- The living room is livable
- Building in hidden storage
- Breakfast table makeover
- A giant, invisible dry erase board
- The wall is back up and we built some furniture!
- Pretty, textured walls, if I do say so myself
- Setback in the powder room
- How to make a vessel sink from a serving bowl
- No more hazy grout
- Powder room reveal: 2 years in the making
- Easy shelf accessory: a painted toy
- Office Update
- Clothesline stand from an old pot
- Simplifying (Another post with embarrassing photos)
- How we fixed our odd cabinet layout with DIY open shelving
- Ungardening
- The stairs are half naked
- A simple vanity update
- The best way to paint tile? Don’t
- Hiding more ugliness in the bathroom
- The cupboards are bare
- Finally, new end tables in the living room
- Painting the stairs
- And on a whim, the kitchen renovation has begun
- The big picture: our whole-house floor plan
- Kitchen style
- White walls in the kitchen
- A practical, $25 kitchen upgrade
- How to paint a range hood, from stainless steel to white
- Beautiful brackets
- The shelves for the open shelving
- We did it!
- The shameful basement
- The big kitchen reveal
- Silly half wall
- How to strip paint with a heat gun
- How about another basement sneak peak?
- Our dining room, at the moment
- Second blog anniversary recap
- A new, dark dining room
- DIY wall art for the kitchen
- Why dark walls look good in a room with little natural light
- Failed project: better-looking canopies
- Stone wall basement before-and-after
- Already a major upgrade to the laundry room
- DIY industrial lamp to replace an ugly ceiling fan
- Another unplanned living room update
- Undone
- Turning napkin holders into wall organizers–again
- I did, in fact, get something accomplished this week.
- Every woman that owns clothes needs these
- The history of the bedroom
- The bedroom is looking way better already
- Giant furniture sale
- Things have to get ugly before they can get pretty
- Black doors and windows
- Jewelry on display
- We’re floorless
- Sneak peek of the dining room floor
- Dining room update
- Maintenance (The deck’s “before” photos)
- Major progress on the new deck!
- The deck is almost done
- Railings, railings, railings
- Removing 130 years of gunk from the hardwood floor (part 1)
- It’s here, it’s here!
- Bathroom shelves
- A serious upgrade for the cheap cabinet
- DIY tie storage
- Free slate trays
- A free upgrade for a drab light fixture
- The hallway before-and-after
- Bedroom update
- A small bathroom update
- Staging the bedroom, and a DIY headboard
- My fix for a peeling chalkboard
- Removing paint from vintage hardware
- Turning Moroccan lanterns into hanging bedside lamps
- Re-painting the kitchen cabinets
- We’re alive! And a bedroom update.
- We made progress on the kitchen renovation!
- Dining room update & a new project coming soon
- Building a built-in sliding-door pantry
- Giant update, guys!
- Really big home office makeover
- Bedroom makeover with just paint and a few second-hand items
- Goodbye to the Victorian…and the Craftsman
- Master Bedroom Makeover
- $96 Powder Room Makeover
- Affordable bathroom reno (the after)
- Our Mid Century Modern tour
- Finished 1940s galley kitchen remodel
Looks fabulous. You have pared down your clothes significantly. I’m not sure many would be able to live with so little. (I do, but it isn’t all that common!) Where do you keep your unmentionables? Alana in Canada
Ah, I forgot to mention the unmentionables. 🙂 They are in the baskets on the shelves.
Where did you find these shelves?
Kate, they are stair treads from Home Depot that are fastened to wall brackets. And for the clothing rails, we screwed IKEA rails to the bottoms of the shelves.
Psychology woman to the answer: Our brains are notoriously lazy, in an “out of sight, out of mind” sort of way. If there isn’t something pressing in front of us that demands we act, it takes a (comparatively) enormous amount of energy to override the autopilot that pushes us to conserve energy and effort for more important tasks (e.g. finding food, avoiding predators, staying alive). Open shelving like you’ve created (which looks amazing, by the way) helps remove many of the barriers to creating new habits, by placing reminders in front of you so you expend far less energy trying to “remember” to hang up your clothing and keep it organized, leaving you with more energy to actually do it.
That’s really interesting. So apparently the “trick” to getting things done is to have them in front of you? Glad to know I’m not just lazy! 😉 Very cool, thank you for explaining!
Well there’s still the surface of the floor. It looks like you have less clothes than hubby! I could do that but…
Seriously it looks great and I know what you mean about it being easier to keep in order. Great job!
Yes, still room for the floordrobe. 🙂 Hubs has always had more clothes than me. Thanks, mom!
I’m in awe! It does look like a very chic boutique!
🙂 Thanks, Magali!
AbbePB explained it so well!
Genius idea to use open shelving, I was first thinking that it would not work for us, but we have sliding doors on our clothes cabinet and how often are those doors closed? Never! So it’s practically open storage, but has a less open feel, I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.
What has helped us keeping clothes in the cabinet is that we no longer have any furniture where to pile things. Which you now have removed too.
I was thinking about the ladder you used to use! I tried to get the old wooden one we had to use either for clothes or shoes, but it was rotten.
We still use the ladder and it’s working. You can only use it for limited amount of clothes otherwise the pile will collapse 🙂 That keeps the ladder looking neat (or as neat as a ladder and pile of clothes can look)
That dress is so pretty!!
Thank you, Kiara! 🙂
Christina, all I can say about this is, you are one gutsy lady (oh, and Bravo!)
Haha! Thank you. 😉
This looks great and perfectly simplified!
Can I ask where you got the wall shelves? We have been planning a similar project (dauntingly, on a larger expanse of wall) for a while but yours looks better than what I pictured in my mind… I’d be grateful for info! Beautiful outcome…
Thank you, Helen! The shelves are made from stair treads from the home improvement store and the brackets are from Anthropologie. We did the same thing in our kitchen, so I have a more detailed posts here and here if you’re interested.
I love this open look so much more than a wardrobe — it actually makes me wish I didn’t have a built-in closet so I could do this in my room 🙂
I also love the cohesive look of the wooden hangers (right now I have mismatched colored plastic hangers of various sizes and it drives me nuts). Can I ask where you purchased your hangers? I’m also curious if you built the shoe rack(s?) or if you purchased it somewhere?
Awww… 🙂 Thanks Kyla! Don’t the hangers make such a difference?! Mine are from Target, IKEA also sells wooden ones. The shelves below are actually IKEA end tables that we cut the bottoms off of so they would sit that low. Unfortunately, they don’t sell them anymore.
You closet is beautiful. I am just adding shelves to my open closet and was wondering what you used for the hanging bars for you clothes?
Thanks Karyn! They are IKEAS Bygel rails, just mounted to the bottoms of the shelves. They have been perfect (especially at $3 & 4 a piece), if you’re going to use them this way, just be sure to attach them to solid wood and not MDF shelving–that wouldn’t hold up the weight.
Did you make the shelves or buy them? I’m not terribly handy but am a school teacher and trying to find affordable shelves!
Hi Nancy, the shelves are stair treads from the home improvement store. The rails that the clothes are hanging from are wall-mounted rails from IKEA, they’re just screwed in to the bottoms of the shelves. So yes, they were very affordable, and very easy!